“So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.” – The New York Times

Named a best book of the year by: The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and many more!

JOHN GREEN, the acclaimed author of
Looking for Alaska and
The Fault in Our Stars, returns with a story of shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.

Aza Holmes never intended to pursue
the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Rezension

A New York Times Notable Book - A New York Times Critics' Top Book of the Year - An NPR Best Book of the Year - A TIME Best Book of the Year - A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year - A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year - An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year - A Seventeen Best Book of the Year - A Southern Living Best Book of the Year - A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year - A Booklist Editors' Choice Selection - A BookPage Best Book of the Year - An SLJ Best Book of the Year - An A.V. Club Best Book of the Year - A Bustle Best Book of the Year - A BuzzFeed Best Book of the Year - A Pop Sugar Best Book of the Year - A Vulture Best Book of the Year

Featured on 60 Minutes, Fresh Air, Studio 360, Good Morning Amercia, The TODAY Show

"This novel is by far [Green's] most difficult to read. It's also his most astonishing. . . . So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung. . . . One needn't be suffering like Aza to identify with it. One need only be human."-The New York Times

"A tender story about learning to cope when the world feels out of control." - People

"Green finds the language to describe the indescribable. . . . A must-read for those struggling with mental illness, or for their friends and family." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Turtles delivers a lesson that we so desperately need right now: Yes, it is okay not to be okay.... John Green has crafted a dynamic novel that is deeply honest, sometimes painful, and always thoughtful." - Mashable

"Green does more than write about; he endeavours to write inside.... No matter where you are on the spiral-and we're all somewhere-Green's novel makes the trip, either up or down, a less solitary experience." - The Globe and Mail

"A thoughtful look at mental illness and a debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder that doesn't ask but makes you feel the constant struggles of its main character. . . . Turtles explores the definition of happy endings, whether love is a tragedy or a failure, and a universal lesson for us all: 'You work with what you have.'" - USA Today

"Damn near genius . . . The Fault in Our Stars is a love story, one of the most genuine and moving ones in rec

Portrait

John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of
Looking for Alaska,
An Abundance of Katherines,
Paper Towns,
Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), and
The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers and co-created the online educational series CrashCourse. You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com. John lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana.

At the time I first realized I might be fictional, my weekdays were spent at a publicly funded institution on the north side of Indianapolis called White River High School, where I was required to eat lunch at a particular time-between 12:37 p.m. and 1:14 p.m.-by forces so much larger than myself that I couldn't even begin to identify them. If those forces had given me a different lunch period, or if the tablemates who helped author my fate had chosen a different topic of conversation that September day, I would've met a different end-or at least a different middle. But I was -beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.

Of course, you pretend to be the author. You have to. You think, I now choose to go to lunch, when that monotone beep rings from on high at 12:37. But really, the bell decides. You think you're the painter, but you're the canvas.

Hundreds of voices were shouting over one another in the cafeteria, so that the conversation became mere sound, the rushing of a river over rocks. And as I sat beneath fluorescent cylinders spewing aggressively artificial light, I thought about how we all believed ourselves to be the hero of some personal epic, when in fact we were basically identical organisms colonizing a vast and windowless room that smelled of Lysol and lard.

I was eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich and drinking a Dr Pepper. To be honest, I find the whole process of masticating plants and animals and then shoving them down my esophagus kind of disgusting, so I was trying not to think about the fact that I was eating, which is a form of thinking about it.

Across the table from me, Mychal Turner was scribbling in a yellow-paper notebook. Our lunch table was like a long-running play on Broadway: The cast changed over the years, but the roles never did. Mychal was The Artsy One. He was talking with Daisy Ramirez, who'd played the role of my Best and Most Fearless Friend since elementary school, but I couldn't follow their conversation over the noise of all the others.

What was my part in this play? The Sidekick. I was Daisy's Friend, or Ms. Holmes's Daughter. I was somebody's something.

I felt my stomach begin to work on the sandwich, and even over everybody's talking, I could hear it digesting, all the bacteria chewing the slime of peanut butter-the students inside of me eating at my internal cafeteria. A shiver convulsed through me.

"Didn't you go to camp with him?" Daisy asked me.

"With who?"

"Davis Pickett," she said.

"Yeah," I said. "Why?"

"Aren't you listening?" Daisy asked. I am listening, I thought, to the cacophony of my digestive tract. Of course I'd long known that I was playing host to a massive collection of parasitic organisms, but I didn't much like being reminded of it. By cell count, humans are approximately 50 percent microbial, meaning that about half of the cells that make you up are not yours at all. There are something like a thousand times more microbes living in my particular biome than there are human beings on earth, and it often seems like I can feel them living and breeding and dying in and on me. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to control my breathing. Admittedly, I have some anxiety problems, but I would argue it isn't irrational to be concerned about the fact that you are a skin-encased bacterial colony.

Mychal said, "His dad was about to be arrested for bribery or something, but the night before the raid he disappeared. There's a hundred-thousand-dollar reward out for him."

"And you know his kid," Daisy said.

"Knew him," I answered.

I watched Daisy attack her school-provided rectangular pizza and green beans with a fork. She kept glancing up at me, her eyes widening as if to say, Well ? I could tell she wanted me to ask her about something, but I couldn't tell what, because my stomach wouldn't shut up, which was forcing me deep inside a worry that I'd somehow contracted a para

Not your typical John Green novel...

...but definitely worth your time. To me personally, this story felt more realistic than any other of his books. A bit unsettling, romantic (but not cliché) and heartwarming. The plot was not really what i expected but it had a bit of everything: friendship, love, adventure, finding yourself and -what i thought was very interesting- it also talks about mental health issues like anxiety and obsessive behaviour.

It was my 5th John Green and I just loved it. If you don't know how to express your feelings he can put it into words, that's why I appreciate his books so much.
His description about Aza's mental illness is so accurate that you get the feeling he experienced it himself and he makes it really easy to empathize with the protagon...
weiterlesen
It was my 5th John Green and I just loved it. If you don't know how to express your feelings he can put it into words, that's why I appreciate his books so much.
His description about Aza's mental illness is so accurate that you get the feeling he experienced it himself and he makes it really easy to empathize with the protagonist especially if you know what it's like to struggle against your thoughts sometimes. I recommend it to everybody but particularly to those who are interested in mental psyche, metaphors and amazing quotes about friendship, love, low self-esteem, growing up and life itself.
weniger